Saturday 12 July 2014

Meh

Lately I've been feeling a lot of ennui and apathy about playing Eve Online. The only part of Eve that really interests me much is trading. I'm already quite wealthy compared to the average player, trading is starting to feel more like a grind than fun and there just isn't much else to do in the game that I find at all interesting.

Mining? Forget it, I promised myself I'd never be a miner before I even started playing and that won't change. Probably THE most boring, repetitive thing you can do in the game.

Missioning? Extremely repetitive and boring, after the first few weeks where it's all new, missions are nearly as bad as mining. There aren't all that many unique missions, for the most part higher level missions are just more difficult versions of the same old missions you've already run far too many times at a lower level.

Exploration? Slightly less boring than mining and slightly more boring than missions. Before they completely wrecked exploration by making it mostly a mini-game. I detest mini-games like that. IMO mini-games are ok as long as they're a one time thing or are optional (you're not forced to repeatedly play some silly mini-game to participate in any particular activity), otherwise they very quickly become incredibly annoying.

PvP? What they call PvP in Eve mostly consists of what would be called ganking and griefing in any other game.... And then there's blobbing and power projection, might as well just call it Risk in Space... Risk with modified rules allowing unlimited troop movement and air drops so you don't have to worry about any real strategy or tactics and can attack anyone, anywhere, anytime. Eve wars don't involve much strategy or even tactics, it's mostly about who has the biggest fleet and the ability to teleport the entire fleet whereever they want in the least amount of time. Flight and combat mechanics are terrible with a whole bunch of bandaid "fixes" slapped on in an attempt to cover up broken, very poorly thought out underlying mechanics.

Excursions? The last bastion of PvE elitists in Eve. No thank you, I had more than enough of putting up with that type of player in WoW.

Industry? Way too complex, time consuming and <cough> "skill" intensive, I want to play the game, not play with spreadsheets all day.

Etc...

About the only thing besides trade that does interest me a bit are stealth operations with Covert Ops, Bomber, Recons and Black Ops. Still based on the same poor combat system but at least it's more about strategy and tactics and not just about who has the biggest teleporting blob.

15 comments:

  1. You earn as much in a month as what I have amassed over my entire EVE career! I have a great deal of respect for what you have achieved.

    However - when it comes to wining at EVE, I've always taken the view that the winners are those who are having fun. The continually poor frigate pirate with a dismal combat record, but who loves their timed logged in is winning EVE. If you are doing your trading and sitting on massive wealth, but are not getting any fun out of it, then - by my definition, you are not winning at EVE.

    I think to win at EVE you either need goals you are interested in and working towards, or are wrapped up and enjoying social aspects of the game, or have both. If trading is no longer as interesting, have a break and look into the stealth related combat. I will warn you - it is a relatively difficult area, particularly when flying solo. However you have a healthy bank balance and can fund the most gloriously bad killboard until you get better at it. And if you have fun doing it, you will be back to winning at EVE.

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  2. I challenge you to come to wormhole space, nothing like dropping in on null sec babies with their intel channels and having them freak out when they have no idea where you came from and how you got there.

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    1. That's the thing I like best about wormholes, the ability to drop in unexpectedly on complacent players deep in null.

      Too bad there isn't much of a market for traders in wormholes.

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    2. Well, you could get a c2 with a null (and generally c5) static.

      The null gives you both PVP and market access.

      The c2 means you will often have incoming wormholes that you can often use to access highsec. (not always but often)

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  3. This is a surprisingly good summary of EVE Online gameplay.

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  4. Try wormholes. you wont regret it!

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  5. I've been there a year ago, having more money than you can reasonably spent.

    So I started projects with my money. And now I'm paying the wardec and SRP costs of the worst murderers of CFC, killing 1/4T worth of them a month. It's challenging, interesting and fulfilling.

    You can do it too. Pick a group whose activity you like and start supporting them. Soon you'll see their activities growing because of your support. You can also reshape New Eden, go for it!

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    1. Been thinking about that for a long time, since before you started the GRR project. The problem with that is finding a group to hire that's competent and trustworthy.

      Which reminds me, can anyone point me towards some good intel on DNS' politics, in particular with regards to relations with goons and the cfc?

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    2. DNS basically shoot everyone. I think they blued Goons for a while when the CFC deployed to Curse.

      Goons generally have good relationships with everyone in null to some extent. The diplomacy game isn't really played by other null powers but nearly everyone is susceptible to being chatted up. NC. are perhaps the only people the Goons don't have influence with.

      That was what I found frustrating when I was against the CFC. One needs allies to win the Risk board but all anyone wanted to do was reset people for good fights. The last person to seriously play the diplo game against the CFC was Montolio but between PL refusing to follow him into war against the CFC then the replacement Test leaders pissing away all those blues there hasn't been a serious diplomatic effort against the CFC since.

      Want a challenge? Go into null and try to build a grr goons coalition.

      Alternatively you can give up like I did and join the CFC, I'll cheerfully vouch you into Bastion if you promise not to awox everyone.

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  6. ' You could always offer a legitimate Jita ISK doubling service.

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  7. I've found much the same apathy, but I'm surrounded by some great friends in EVE and that goes a long way. I'm also hopeful that a vision like Endie put forth might happen.

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  8. Sounds like you'll end up like me pretty soon... Only just staggered logging again because plex is too damn high... It's like a deployment, you'll forget the bad parts and remember the good ones.... After a long break.

    Hope they fix nul, CFC was right. They ruined everyone else's game

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    1. I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record on this but IMO they can' t fix null without first fixing the power projection problem and that means nerfing the hell out of Jump mechanics.

      What they really should do is just remove jump bridges and remove jump capability from jump freighters and every combat capable ship larger than a Black Ops BS.

      If there's no more near instant teleporting of the biggest ships in the game across the entire map power projection will be far more difficult and not much of a problem.

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